With great power comes great responsibility for new breed of African superheroes

In the first issue of Aje, a Nigerian comic offering a new breed of superheroes from Africa, university student Teni casts a curse on her boyfriend in a flash of jealous rage – and purple lightning.

“Koni dara fun o ni yi aye,” snarls Teni in Yoruba, a language and one of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria. This translates as: “It will never be better for you in this life.”

Aje was created by Jide Martins, the founder of Comic Republic, one of a handful of start-ups that is developing African superheroes they hope can rival the likes of Iron Man, Batman, Superman and Spider-Man.

Unlike Storm, the popular character from Marvel’s X-Men, who is a dual citizen of the United States and the fictional African country Wakanda, the superheroes Martins brings to life are born and bred in Africa – and live and fight there, too.

“In university, I started wondering what it would be like if Superman came to Nigeria,” says Martins, from his flat in Lagos, where his dining room doubles as a studio for his team of young illustrators.

“People are trying to break away from the norm and find new things to aspire to. You don’t have to be white to save the world.”

In 2013, Martins, 37, published the first issue of Guardian Prime, starring a hero wearing a forest-­green and snow-white super-suit – the colours of the Nigerian flag. Readership has grown from about 100 an issue to more than 28,000.

Each 30-plus page issue is free and only available as a digital download, but Martins is able to generate enough money from advertising and spin-off projects, including educational booklets on malaria featuring his characters, to keep his comics business running.

“People had this idea that African comics had to be with people in traditional clothes, but I don’t agree with that,” he says. “Let them have Nigerian names, saving people in Nigeria – but let’s put them in spandex.”

Martins isn’t the only creator to realise the potential of the burgeoning African superhero industry, which adapts local traditions of voodoo and the occult for a modern-day audience.

Roye Okupe is the creator of EXO – The Legend of Wale Williams, a graphic novel set in Lagoon City, a futuristic version of Lagos that is riddled with corruption and besieged by an extremist insurrection.

The 30-year-old, who grew up in the Nigerian megacity of 20 million people, saw a market for a fantastical African character grounded in reality.

“You’re probably not able to name five African superheroes off the top of your head,” Okupe says while talking from Washington DC, where he lives. “And as much as I love [Marvel’s] Black Panther, he’s from a fictional African country.”

At a time when superheroes dominate the international box office, Okupe says Nigerians are uniquely poised to offer alternatives to the Clark Kents and Peter Parkers.

“Ten years ago, if you released a superhero from Nigeria, I don’t think anybody would care,” says Okupe. “But now that it’s a popular industry, people want diversity.”

For scholars of comic books, the rise of African superheroes are an inevitable reaction to a predominantly white cast of caped crusaders.

"I think it's long overdue," says Ronald Jackson, co-editor of the 2013 book Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation.

“As we begin to appreciate other identities, we’re going to become increasingly more embracing of the kind of images coming out of African comics.

“What you don’t always see front and centre are major spin-offs in terms of movies and television shows. I think that may be the next step for African comics.”

In the Comic Republic studio, the team of illustrators – all under the age of 30 – hope that one day their characters will appear on the big screen.

They're betting that their African cast, including witches stronger than the Jedi warriors in Star Wars, will excite international audiences.

“You hear about Greek gods such as Zeus, but no one has heard of Shango, the god of lightning in Yoruba,” says 23-year-old illustrator Tobe Ezeogu. “It’s a different take than people are used to.”

Besides characters such as Aje and Guardian Prime, Martins and his team have also created Avonome, who visits the spiritual realm to fight battles, and Eru, a lecturer at the University of Lagos, whose alter ego is modelled on the Yoruba god of fear.

“We’re shocked at the way people have received the comics,” says Martins. “It’s been amazing.”